I hold my breath as I time my entry into theroom and then casually mimic the nearest guard’s path along the rows of workers. Keeping my shoulders hunched to make myself look smaller, I reach the other side of the room, where I slip into the nearest corridor, again matching the speed of movement to the guards patrolling this corridor.
They each give me a nod as they pass me. I give them a nod in return.
Within minutes, I make it to Victor’s workroom.
I was prepared to encounter a guard outside his door and I’m surprised when there isn’t one. Or three, for that matter.
Then I see why.
A large, steel bar extends across the middle of the door, too thick even for me to break it, ensuring nobody inside this room is getting out. Of course, there’s a back way out from Victor’s library, but I saw the guards standing outside that external door.
I don’t squander my time. Maybe there are no guards because nobody’s getting through this door. Or maybe they’re simply in the middle of a changeover.
At the back of my mind, I’m conscious that my time is running out and I can’t second-guess anything.
Lifting the bar and placing it to the side of the door, where it won’t draw too much attention, I slip inside and pull the door closed behind me.
Victor hunches at his workbench on the far side of the room, his back to me, his shoulders stooped low.
Gone is the faintly soapy smell, my brother’s clean scent.
The air is dank and the walls are covered in new drawings, some depicting large mechanisms with cogs and wheels, others showing strange canisters, some appearing made of clay while others are clearly metallic.
Victor stiffens, his backstraightening, his voice more deeply angry than I’ve ever heard. “Hadrian, I’m working as fast as I can. You’ll have your fucking weapons when you have them.”
More alarming to me than the uncharacteristic ferocity in my brother’s voice is the wheeze of air on his next inhalation.
“Victor?”
He swivels in his chair, his focus snapping to me.
His jaw drops. “Antony?”
As quickly as I can, I pull off the protective hood and face covering.
Victor hasn’t moved. “But…you’re dead.”
“Death didn’t want me.”
Victor lurches out of his chair and that’s when I see the dark rings under his eyes, the cracks in his lips, the faded tinge of bruising across his jaw…
And the delicate silver chain wrapped multiple times around his neck, hidden until this moment by his lank hair.
He jabs at the ruby circlet. “Get this fucking thing off me.”
Only the current king can latch and unlatch a ruby circlet. Any other attempt to remove the chain results in a triggering of its metallic teeth and a brutal loss of whatever limb it’s wrapped around.
In this case, Victor’s head.
I’m at his side in an instant, my hand reaching for the clasp before I’m frozen with doubt.
The force radiating out from the circlet…
It brings back a horror from my past when my father threw me onto his shoulder and carried me into the catacombs that were protected by this same blood magic. Until I became king, I couldn’t pass through that magical barrier without facing death.
I had Victor design the ruby circlets for me—three of them—using slivers of the same magic-infused metal protecting the catacombs.
My fingers hover beside Victor’s throat even as his breaths seethe in and out of his chest and I can feel him willing me to act without delay.
